- deer populations are intentionally increased by wildlife managers in order to provide sport hunters with living targets.
- First, they manipulate habitat to increase deer shelter and browse (deer food)
- Deer populations are naturally low in dense forest because there is little for deer to eat.
- By removing trees and thinning them out, or doing "controlled burns" the sun can hit the forest floor allowing more deer browse to grow.
- Secondly, they manipulate the sex ratio between male and female deer, and skew the natural ratio (one male to one female) in favor of females
- They permit hunters to take bucks only in many places.
- By reducing the male population they leave more browse for the females.
- Deer are polygamous and one male can impregnate many females.
- There is another phenomenon that kicks in after hunting season called "compensatory rebound." That occurs when the population is suddenly and drastically reduced, the remaining animals will have more offspring.
- Wildlife managers know that compensatory rebound in combination with bucks-only hunting ensures a high population in the autumn.
- To accommodate the hunter demand for "trophy bucks," managers are trying to grow bucks with huge antlers for trophy hunting.
- That necessitates killing more females to allow the males to mature to the size that trophy hunters want to kill.
- Quality deer management is much newer and is not as popular with hunters as being allowed to kill bucks without having to think about how large the racks are.
- Deer and other popular game species (Canada geese, wild turkeys) are managed for high numbers at the expense of the 99% of the other species.
- That's not to mention that they are managed without respect for the residents or commercial orchards. Far from being "conservation" this is destructive to the environment, ecology, biology and even certain businesses.
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